Syrian Headache

French gendarmes are suspicious men.

Last week they grew excited over a dozen cases of apricots standing innocently on the railway platform at Aleppo. Ruthlessly the gendarmes tore the cases apart and, like hens who had just done their duty on the nest, gave a chorus of self-satisfied ejaculations as they discovered not fruit, but cartridges and arms. The crates were consigned to rebellious Moslem Kurd tribesmen in northeastern Syria who have been revolting for weeks against French rule, who only day before had swooped down from the back country to pillage Christian homes and shops in Amouda near the Turkish frontier.

But the shipment had been sent too late, for the same day a French squadron of bombing planes droned low over Amouda, dropped their explosives on ramshackle huts. Motorized infantry units swept into the village to mop up, and the planes roared away to disperse Kurd concentrations in three other villages.

Last week's action climaxed months of disorder arising out of France's decision to substitute in 1939, for her 15-year-old Syrian mandate, two republics--Syria proper and Lebanon. With this plan there are at least five incurable difficulties: 1) although Syria is mainly Mohammedan, Lebanon mainly Christian, both have strong, quarrelsome minority groups; 2) Moslem nationalist leaders insist on a unified Syria, instead of two independent states; 3) Turks in the Antioch-Alex-andretta Sanjak, near the Turkish border, demand the creation of a third independent state (TIME, Feb. 15 et ante); 4) Moslem Kurds seize every opportunity to raid Christian villages in the northeast; 5) fierce Druse tribesmen make periodic pillages in the fertile valleys of Lebanon.

Vacationing in France, Count Damien de Martel, High Commissioner for Syria, heard the news, shrugged his shoulders philosophically, prepared to return to his nerve-racking job.

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